iSense
by amandajbruce
Summary: An exploration of the relationship between two characters over time via the five senses.


iSense

An exploration of the relationship between two characters over time via their five senses.

-o-

iSee

-o-

Sam Puckett didn't hate Freddie Benson on sight. People like to say that she did, but it isn't true. Of course, people also like to say that Sam picked on Gibby so much in junior high because she had some sort of misplaced crush on the kid, but that wasn't true either. He was just such an easy target, plus, he really needed to toughen up more. She was doing the weirdo a favor. It was only once or twice that she went too far and, you know, broke his thumbs or something. But, back to Freddie.

She didn't hate him. She just thought he was a nub. And the thing she had learned about nubs in her brief nine years was that they would only continue to act like nubs unless you forced them to really examine their choices. So, she did that. Violently. And it was kind of fun. But, back then, Freddie was little more than a welcome distraction from her everyday life, someone she could push around who never got her into any serious trouble.

It took the nub up and deciding he was head over heels for her best friend in junior high for Sam to really start paying attention to him.

She noticed how he shuffled down the school hallways, carefully avoiding the boys who were bigger than him, like wrestlers and football players. She also was quick to hone in on just how carefully he held his laptop case when he brought it into school. He never left it in his locker, and even cradled it like a baby, as though it needed protecting. Those two things alone gave Sam plenty of ammunition to use against him.

He got used to her insults pretty quickly though. When she started amping up her insults, he was tense all over, even a little scared. But it only took about a week before he would fire back at her, then take off running. A week after that and he wouldn't take off at all, just back up quickly, cringing, waiting for a blow to come. Contrary to popular belief, Sam wasn't about to just beat Freddie up. Sure, she'd smack him once in a while, trip him, throw him up against a locker if he was in her way, but she never actually _beat _him. And he adapted so well, Sam decided to hit him where it would really hurt.

"You're such a creepy little stalker, Benson. _Carly will never love you._"

She was able to get a lot of mileage out of that particular insult. Who knew the kid would be crushing on Carly for years? She'd watch his eyes widen in surprise, then hurt, his shoulders slumped, making him seem even smaller. But, like anything else she threw at him, eventually he started returning it. Instead of eyes wide in hurt, they were narrow with anger. He would stand up straight, like he was preparing for battle or something. And then, after firing off a usually lame retort, he would run.

But noticing Freddie and _seeing _Freddie were really two different things. Seeing him took a little bit longer. And it wasn't particularly pleasant. Well, it was, but then, it wasn't. Seeing Freddie involved some dead fish in his locker, her being handcuffed to Gibby, and a whole lot of discussions about something as nerve wracking as first kisses.

At fourteen, Freddie had never kissed anyone before. Maybe he was waiting around for Carly. Sam had never kissed anyone before either. She wasn't sure what she had been waiting for. Maybe she had been waiting for someone safe, someone who wasn't going to hurt her. And maybe she thought Freddie was safe. Maybe that's why, after telling the world his embarrassing secret, she planted the first kiss idea in his head, and told him to lean.

She hadn't ever, not in a million years, actually thought that Freddie Benson, of all the people in Seattle, in the whole world, would be her first real kiss. She had also never thought it would be so... illuminating. The shock made her forget all about closing her eyes. Instead, she stared at his face. She could have counted his eyelashes if she wanted to. She didn't, but she could have. She just found it a whole lot harder to close her eyes, where he was concerned, after that night.

-o-

Freddie Benson, on the other hand, first saw Sam and thought that she looked like a whole lot of fun. None of her clothes matched. Her hair was wild. She even had a strip of dirt on her cheek. She looked like everything his mom made sure he wasn't. Of course, then she spoke to him, and the whole thing was ruined. Freddie spent a lot of his time looking at Sam's shoes instead of the girl in question when she knocked him down, or her hands as they neared his face. For someone who could pack such a punch, she had awfully small hands.

He got well acquainted with those hands over the course of several years. Freddie discovered that when Sam was really angry with him, she lashed out with her left hand. When she was only mildly annoyed, she used her right. (Obviously, he preferred the right. The bruises faded faster.) He also took note that Sam, unlike a lot of the other girls at school, rarely painted her nails. She also rarely washed her hands, and she didn't wear a ton of jewelry. In fact, due to Sam's hands being in his line of sight so often, he got to know quite a few things about her that he might have missed otherwise.

He tried not to pay too much attention to Sam though. He really did. He thought he'd be safer that way. She just seemed to always be around. It was like he couldn't escape her, even if he wanted to. By the time he was fourteen, he wasn't sure he really wanted to though. Sure, she might have put blue cheese dressing in his shampoo. And sure, she might embarrass him on the world wide web on a regular basis. But, when it came down to it, Sam had his back. She kept that one football player from beating him up (too badly), and she willingly threatened the entire 'iCarly' audience on his behalf when he was being mercilessly teased. Those were the kinds of things he couldn't help but see. Sam had somehow become firmly implanted in the box labeled "friend" - with a few warning messages, of course – in the back of his mind.

Unfortunately for Freddie, all of his observations didn't adequately prepare him for what was coming. It was completely unexpected when Sam started wearing carefully blank expressions when she was around him, complimenting him on his work, and even willingly working on a school project with him. He started watching her even more carefully. And what he found surprised him. He saw a carefully controlled, tightly wound Sam who seemed to be clamping down on all of her usual impulses. She was even eating less. It worried him. Someone couldn't hold themselves in check for that long without exploding and unleashing a torrent of pent up emotions.

When she finally did explode, of course it was at him. It wasn't with yelling or witty comebacks, or even a body slam against a bank of lockers. Instead, she grabbed him and brought her mouth to his, something he was sure they had both agreed to not even think about, let alone do, after that first time. It was still hesitant and scary, just like before, but this time, he was too surprised, and didn't know how to respond. He leaned forward just a little bit, and his mouth made some sort of movement, but mainly he just looked around in shock, too afraid to actually look at Sam until it was over.

For the first time in a long time, the girl that he knew not to let herself show fear in front of anyone looked like she wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear, or maybe drop right off the face of the planet. And he couldn't even truly see her through all of his confusion. Not right away. Not until she was already hiding from him in a psychiatric ward.

-o-

iSmell

-o-

Freddie doesn't really make a habit of smelling people. You know, because he isn't a dog or anything. Normal people don't just walk up to one another and sniff. But, if you spend enough time around someone, you must become attuned to their particular scent. It's something familiar, so maybe you get so used to it that you don't even notice it. But, obviously, you notice it because you can tell when it's your mom or your best friend standing behind you in the hallway, right?

Like...

His mom probably smells like antiseptic or baby wipes or something, but so does the rest of the apartment, so he doesn't really pay a whole lot of attention to those particular scents unless he's somewhere that doesn't have them. And Spencer, when he forgets to put on cologne, often has this lingering turpentine and lighter fluid combo that trails behind him. It's barely there, but it's still there, stronger when he's working on new sculptures. Sometimes the whole Shay living room smells like it. Freddie doesn't want to think about the lighter fluid though. The entire idea is a little alarming. Then, there's Carly and, well, she's exactly what you would expect. Never the same, but always sweet. Sometimes it's berries, sometimes it's flowers, but it's always something so girly and sugary that too much of it makes you sneeze. She likes to try out different lotions and perfumes. Sam says Carly has a drawer full of half used beauty products in her bathroom. Freddie wouldn't know. He's never had a reason to go looking for any. Not that he would, no matter what Sam might tell you.

Ah, Sam.

Now, she's interesting. When they first met, back in grade school, he always associated her with recess. Even if she didn't actually smell like it, he always expected grass and rain and dirt to cloak her. Mainly because she spent so much of recess pushing him into dirt (mud on rainy days) or sliding him across grass, staining his khakis. They seemed to be locked up in this never ending game of tag, so he went with it. It was better than getting picked last to play kickball. For Freddie, Sam _was _recess.

But then, they started at Ridgeway, and Sam was always walking down the halls with extra large coffees and breakfast sandwiches. She became a cloud of the Skybucks house blend and grease. He wanted to tell her that coffee was supposed to stunt your growth, and she was so small that she couldn't really afford to be stunted, but, he figured that kind of talk would only lead to pain. Besides, he wasn't allowed to drink coffee, and he liked the way it smelled. Even when she had him in a head lock and he could tell that she had just used orange scented hand lotion at Carly's request, or was chewing on a piece of cinnamon gum, she was still early morning fast food breakfast with a caffeinated beverage to Freddie's brain.

Now though, now that he was around her all the time and their "friendship" consisted of more than just beatings (there were insults, but also jokes and plenty of laughter), he could sniff her out from half way across the room (maybe further, he hadn't really tested it), which was probably kind of strange, but she didn't spend a lot of time spraying on designer fragrances, or even washing her hair for that matter. Not that she smelled bad. It was exactly the opposite. Freddie discovered that Sam actually smelled pretty good.

She still smelled kind of like coffee every once in a while, but she wasn't drinking it everyday anymore. There was that faint, exhale and you miss it, whiff of strawberries, probably a result of her daily, sometimes multiple times daily, Strawberry Splat at the Groovy Smoothie. Some people might have expected her to have a scent like barbecue sauce or bacon with all the pork products she consumed, but no. What Freddie most acknowledged in the air surrounding Sam was maple syrup. He hadn't actually seen her use the sweet stuff all that often. She usually inhaled waffles or pancakes before she could even bother to find the syrup. But still, it persisted. Always. It was like brown sugar and butter and maple right out of the bottle, and he couldn't help but lean a little bit closer to her and breathe her in when they stood together. If she ever noticed that he did it, she never said anything to him.

But she did have a habit of smacking him around when they stood near one another, so maybe she was just preoccupied.

-o-

It wasn't necessarily that Sam was preoccupied though. She just didn't think that Freddie, of all people, would be leaning over to smell her when he was constantly going on about how wonderful their other best friend was. She kind of assumed that wonder must extend to the other girl's scent as well.

But, what does she know, really? It's not like you can control what scents attract you.

Lack of control is something Sam is very familiar with.

She's also got quite the nose when it comes to food. Sam could tell you what part of the pig is cooking without even seeing it first. She can even sniff out the difference between ice cream and frozen yogurt. And she always thought her favorite scents would forever involve meat... or maybe pie. She's a big fan of pie. But she didn't count on Freddie.

Like him, Sam's earliest olfactory memories of the boy involve grass and dirt, but also sunshine. (Sam still isn't entirely sure what sunshine smells like, but she knows it's Freddie all over.) In Seattle, where the rainy days outnumber the sunny ones, recess outside was never an everyday thing. So days where she got to toss Freddie around in the mud or drag him across the playground were much less frequent than she would have liked. Because Freddie never cried big salty tears or got her into trouble. Sure, he'd run and yell at her, but if they were stopped by a teacher, he'd always just laugh and say they were playing tag. While Carly would swing away on the swing set, staring at clouds and laughing with the other daffodils, Sam was always it. And Sam _loved _being it. She'd much rather be the one doing the chasing than the one being chased, at least when she was that age.

When they started at Ridgeway, Freddie had officially become a nub. _The Nub, _really. He spent so much time in the computer lab or the library that all Sam could smell when she was around him was freshly copied paper and ink. It made her want to punch something. She didn't need him reminding her that she was forced to spend time in this prison they called a school. She took to waiting until she got into the hallways in the morning to eat her breakfast so she could have eggs and bacon masking him. Of course, that just made her hungry all day. Which made her cranky. Which still made her want to punch something. So she took it out on Freddie.

Once they started recording the webshow every week though, Freddie spent more time with her and Carly, and a whole lot less time in the library. The stench of paper and ink didn't seep from his very pores anymore. And it might have taken her until her lips were pressed against his on a fire escape (she likes to insist that it didn't mean anything, when she allows anyone to talk about it) but, she does notice that he has a smell that is distinctly boy.

It isn't boy like she's come to associate with her mom's "special friends" either. There's no cigarettes or alcohol or motor oil or any of the other things her mom considers manly. Those things all seem far to edgy for Freddie. But he isn't all baby powder and aloe like Gibby either. Of course, Freddie doesn't have a younger brother, and Freddie doesn't have to combat wedgie burns. It definitely isn't boy like those sweaty wrestlers who smell like protein bars and gym socks. It's like this underlying mustiness. Like his body just has to prove that it sweats just a little bit more than hers, like it's trying to rub in her face the fact that she is a _girl_ and Freddie is a _boy. _It's like he's telling her, without saying a word, "hey Sam, look at me, I'm not ten anymore." As if she didn't know that.

There's an edge of chamomile tea to him too. Which Sam would find weird, and maybe even call him an old man because of it, but she knows that his mom doesn't like him to have caffeine, so coffee is out of the question for him. Besides, if she told him, she'd have to admit she'd been noticing. But there's also this hint of lemon, probably from one of the billion different soaps his mom makes him use. And instead of smelling like sanitizer or medicine, it still makes her think of the sun peeking through the clouds, or maybe a warm mug on a cold day. She isn't entirely sure why. Sam doesn't really want to think about it, to be perfectly honest. Because at fifteen, with as often as she tries to make his life miserable, Sam Puckett doesn't think she should be associating Freddie Benson with warmth or laughter or items of comfort.

-o-

iHear

-o-

The first time Sam Puckett heard Freddie Benson speak, he said "present," loudly and clearly on the first day of school in fourth grade. He sounded like a chipmunk. And she took to calling him Squeaky. She thought it fit, and she wasn't quite as creative then. He called her evil. And that was how it all started, really.

His voice stayed pretty squeaky over the next few years. She found a lot of amusement in the fact that she was able to tease other boys in sixth and seventh grade about the cracking and breaking of their voices, their faces turning bright red in response to her words. But every time she picked on Freddie, he still sounded the same. It wasn't as fun. Unlike herself, Freddie seemed to be running late for the whole puberty party. In eighth grade she started to wonder if his voice was ever going to drop. It was kind of disconcerting to think of Freddie like a little boy still in that one respect. Because she didn't. Not really. It was hard to think of him as little when annoying girls were crushing on him, or Freddie was trying to get Sam and Carly to stop talking about Build-A-Bra, his face a light shade of pink, and his eyes looking anywhere but at the two girls.

She'd only gone a few days without seeing him when it happened. It was like there was no warning. She didn't even get the chance to make fun of him. And it threw her for a loop. There she was, standing in Carly's kitchen, eating a snack, when in walked Freddie, saying... well, she knew he said something because his lips were moving and sound came out, but he wasn't squeaky anymore. And she said the first thing that popped into her head.

"When did your voice get deeper?"

"I don't know, puberty?" He even shrugged all nonchalantly, acting like it wasn't a big deal.

But it was. A big deal. Sam had, though she'd never actually said anything to anyone about it, been fascinated by the idea of guys' voices dropping so much lower than a girl's. Yeah, girls got hips and a bigger bra size, and really, that was great and all, but it took a long time for those to fill in properly. (Just look at Carly.) This was kind of sudden. Freddie sounded all... older. It made his voice kind of nice to listen to now. But she just raised an eyebrow at his explanation and resolved to use more insults on him instead of beatings in the immediate future. He would have to fight back verbally, and she could decide if she really liked to listen to him, or if this was just another momentary lapse in judgment.

It wasn't like she'd never had one of those before. Or like she never would again.

-o-

As a youngster, Freddie rarely allowed himself to tune into the sound of Sam's voice unless it was peppered with hostility or raised in anger. He figured those were the most important times to pay attention to her anyway. If she was angry, it was best for him to be on his guard. An angry Sam usually meant a bruised Freddie. That was just the way the world worked.

In fact, until he was thirteen, Freddie never actually heard real laughter from Sam. Usually, she kind of, well, cackled at someone else's misfortune, or at a particularly good prank. Sometimes there was an amused chuckle, but not genuine, bubbly, happy laughter. He thought that maybe Sam wasn't all that happy of a person. Which was one of the reasons he started paying more attention. When she was around Carly (his dream girl because she was sugar, not spice) and Spencer, Sam seemed to smile a whole lot more.

The first time he heard Sam laugh, he didn't even know it was her at first. There were words like "Spencer" and "paint brush" and "inappropriate" that traveled down the hall from Carly's mouth, but Freddie didn't hear it all, and he was going to be late to math if he didn't hurry. But then, there it was. A slight giggle, then a chuckle, then the laughter was bouncing all around the hall and Sam was there with her head thrown back, one hand clutching her side, the other Carly's arm.

She's so pretty when she's laughing, he thought to himself. But it wasn't until he was getting a verbal warning from his teacher for sliding into his seat after the bell that he realized, for once, he wasn't thinking about Carly.

And Carly would be pushed even further from his mind the one and only time he ever heard Sam when she thought no one else was listening.

It wasn't that Sam didn't talk to herself often. And it wasn't that Freddie had never heard Sam and Carly singing along to the radio before or anything like that. He'd even heard them singing when they took that trip out to Los Angeles to find Carly's cheating boyfriend. But this was different. This wasn't Sam infront of a crowd of people, or Sam putting on any kind of a show. This was Sam, on her own, not trying to impress anyone.

Sam, alone in the studio, one earbud securely ensconced in place, the other between her left thumb and forefinger, was half singing, half speaking the words to a song he'd never heard before while she clicked around on his laptop before rehearsal one day. He didn't stop to wonder why she was there so early, and he didn't walk right in either. He didn't really want to risk her throwing his laptop against the wall or something. It would be expensive to replace. He stood there in the doorway and he waited while Sam sang in a clear and slightly accented voice about loving someone from afar. She even hummed along with the instrumental parts. He'd always taken her for a rock and roll kind of a girl, the kind of girl who yelled lyrics into your face instead of letting them float on by with the music, but this was completely different. One of her feet tapped out a rhythm, and she swayed from side to side like she was moving with an invisible breeze.

And the thought crossed his mind that when Sam wasn't busy pretending to be so tough, she might be just as soft as another girl he knew, and maybe he should listen a little more carefully to the things she might be saying when she wasn't shouting.

-o-

iTaste

-o-

Who actually assigns a taste to a person? Not Freddie. Definitely not. His mother would send him to a special psychologist if she thought for one second he was considering flavors as they corresponded to the people he knew. But he couldn't help it. Sometimes, if you know someone chews a lot of gum, or drinks a lot of the same beverage, or sweats a lot, you just associate them with a flavor. It's like a smell, really, he reasons. If someone smells like the outdoors, you might expect them to be earthy or salty in flavor. Not that he goes around tasting people. He tried to stick to normal social conventions you know. Tasting people wasn't one of them. Cause that would probably get him sent to a special psychologist too.

But there was that one time in sixth grade when he accidentally licked Sam's arm.

It wasn't his fault, really. He hadn't set out to lick Sam Puckett. Why would he want to? She wasn't known for being the cleanest of girls. It was after school one day, and he was waiting for his mom to pick him up. She didn't yet trust him to walk to the bus stop with the neighbor across the hall and make his own way home. She thought he would get mugged, or something worse. Every Wednesday she worked a later shift and he had to stay at school for a couple of extra hours. So, he decided to put his enjoyment (other people might call it a nerdtastic obsession) with technology to good use, and he joined the AV club. On this particular Wednesday, they had been having an ice cream social.

Well, that's what they called it anyway. But, the sugar and lactose free goo they were eating could hardly be called real ice cream. As someone who had spent his entire life having his diet carefully monitored though, Freddie didn't think the goo was all that bad. And social wasn't necessarily the right word since it wasn't like they were socializing with anyone other than the five guys that were at the AV club meetings every week.

Freddie had himself an ice cream cone. He had scooped out the lactose free, sugarless mess himself, and had perfectly formed it into his also sugar free cone. He was all set to enjoy it, had just opened his mouth and went to lick it, when it was snatched away from him and his tongue met the back of someone's hand instead.

"Wow, nub, didn't know you had it in you," Sam snapped at him. Her tone matched the taste that lingered on the tip of his tongue: gritty with plenty of spice. He didn't know what she had been up to before crashing the AV club social, and he probably didn't want to know, but he was pretty sure he needed to disinfect his mouth. He didn't even bother to attempt a comeback when Sam licked the ice cream cone, made a face, and dropped it in his lap. He just winced and rinsed his mouth out with his emergency antiseptic his mom made him carry. Then, he ran his tongue over his teeth in confusion because not only was he worried about what his mom was going to think about the stain on his pants, but he couldn't get the taste of Sam's skin to go away.

It's funny that only a couple of years later, when he kissed Sam, the same taste would settle on his mouth, with the added flavors of meatballs and chap stick, and his reaction would be completely different. Once she was out of sight, he would repeatedly run the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, trying to place just what that special Sam spice could be. At first he thought it might be something akin to the spices in curry. His mom had never allowed him to have curry though, so he couldn't be sure. He just knew it was like nothing else he'd ever tasted. It was all Sam.

He was more curious than he was repulsed.

-o-

The first time Sam really took into consideration what someone else tasted like, well, she was a whole lot younger than Freddie. She was, after all, a fighter. And if she was somehow cornered and couldn't kick or hit her way out of a situation, there was always biting.

She remembers quite clearly the time she bit Melissa Schafer in the first grade. The other girl was about a head taller than Sam, though stick skinny, and she had short black hair that rested thinly below her chin. She was the queen of the first grade, and she made the mistake of insulting Sam's Uncle Carmine after he dropped her off at school one day. Uncle Carmine was fresh off a stint in prison for his part in a ring of car thieves. He was, or so he said while he was sleeping on the Puckett family couch, turning over a new leaf. Melissa called Uncle Carmine several names that she probably learned from her parents, including letting Sam know that the former thief was a low life slob, and obviously, that's where Sam got all her bad habits from. Sam lashed out before she thought, and she winded up in a headlock by the larger girl. Sam bit down on Melissa's wrist, hard enough to draw blood.

Melissa was bitter and metallic, much like Sam would have thought she would be if the young girl had put any thought into it. Sam got written up, Melissa's parents put her in private school.

Freddie, on the other hand, was like a really great piece of bread.

Sam knew this early on in their friendship because she liked to torment him, not only by licking his belongings (like his cell phone or his calculator) to gross him out, but she also easily upped her game by licking him. Now, there was that one time she licked his hand when he covered her mouth to stop her from blurting out an embarrassing secret of his, but that was his hand, right after washing them before lunch, and he just tasted like soap. When she wanted to really annoy him, she would deftly sneak up behind him and stick just the tip of her tongue inside the opening of his ear.

He'd cringe and yell and jump away and his face would turn this light shade of pink like someone had just turned up the heat in the room. Sam loved it. It was one of the most entertaining things she'd ever witnessed. It took Sam doing this three times before she was actually focused enough on the experience to notice that Freddie's ears didn't taste like soap. His skin had a rich, full taste that was offset by the slightly coconut scent of his hair conditioner. And it was weird that even the skin of his earlobe was super smooth, like his mom made him moisturize his ears too.

It was kind of, though Sam would never admit this to anyone, nice. And it made her think of a thick slice of freshly baked bread, hot out of the oven, the kind of food you wanted to savor instead of devour. The whole comparison left her vaguely unsettled every time, but it didn't stop her from continuing to torture her favorite Nub.

-o-

iFeel

-o-

Sam had always been a pretty tactile learner. She took things apart, put them together; she just had to really get a feel for the task. She was one of those kids who would walk through a store and casually run her hand along the shelves, the counter, the doors. She just had to touch everything. The tips of her fingers were like a tape, memorizing, recording, everything around her. Her mother didn't like to take her out in public unless she had something with her to keep the little girl occupied. Her cousin Chaz had a completely different thought though, and he taught seemingly sweet little Samantha how to use her nimble fingers to pick pockets by the time she was five. Sam loved the bumping into people, the sliding up against chairs, running the silky suit jackets through the tips of her fingers just before she grabbed whatever it was Chaz was looking for. She loved getting to _feel _everything around her. She got this heady rush of excitement every time.

And that need for the physical persisted as she got older as well. Everyone could see that. Maybe that's why she wasn't the kind of person who could just roll her eyes or shout in annoyance. She had to run the whole gamut of physical reactions, complete with groaning, stamping her feet, clapping a hand to her thigh, pushing someone out of her way, slamming doors, throwing things, she did it all.

Especially around one Freddie Benson.

She couldn't put her finger on just why she did it, other than it gave her a similar rush of exhilaration that playing pick pocket with Chaz used to give her. She'd tug on Freddie's hair and her heart would pump a bit faster. She'd let the pads of her fingers linger on his skin after she hit him and she'd be able to feel that skin all the way to the tips of her toes. She didn't think about how soft anything was, just the way the feeling made _her_ feel. It was easier that way.

As she got older though, there were other things that she did think about. Like when she'd grab Freddie's shoulders from behind and toss him over the couch, how every muscle in his body would go completely rigid. It was like his body wanted to react to her assault, but wasn't entirely sure what it was supposed to do. It was like she was capable of confusing even Freddie's muscular system. Not that he had, you know, _muscles, _the first time she had that thought.

Those came later, which she also noticed when she went to pull on his arm with half her usual strength and was met with a surprising amount of resistance one day. Suddenly, Freddie was able to at least attempt to thwart her surprise attacks. And she had to admit, she was intrigued. She was also intrigued when he began insisting on regular arm wrestling matches against her, and his fingers would give hers a soft squeeze before they began. Sam found herself sorely tempted to squeeze back.

But she didn't. Instead, she found her own muscles tensing whenever she was around Freddie, just like his had so long ago when she used to toss him over the couch. Could it be that Freddie Benson was making her nervous?

-o-

Sam had always made him nervous, so though he didn't know that he was doing it, he would have been glad to return the favor. Unlike Sam, Freddie didn't revel in the physical reactions he got from other people. Freddie had always been more of a thinker than a doer. He didn't need to complete an experiment to draw a conclusion. He could just as easily read about someone else's experiences to understand the results. He had never been the kid who tried to pull all the toys down from the shelf in the toy store just to see what they were either. He had always been the kind of kid who would stand quietly with his hands in his pockets and let people explain things to him.

Until he became "friends" with Sam.

Standing on the sidelines and watching things happen wasn't enough for Freddie Benson. Instead, Freddie was willing to help out with practical jokes. He found himself testing complicated riggings with his bare hands instead of a system of weights and measures. He allowed himself to be a guinea pig when Sam needed to test out new maneuvers. He would run his hands lovingly over the keys to his laptop the same way Sam would over takeout containers. And he found himself becoming much more comfortable with pushing back after being pushed. Someone (usually Sam) would purposely bump into him in the hallway at school, using their elbow to sweep him into the lockers, and he would find himself stretching out his arm to collide with their's to give them a nudge as well.

On one occasion he noticed out of the corner of his eye, that he even managed to move Sam over a few inches from where she stood. He didn't know whether he had actually managed to do that, or if she was just so surprised by him elbowing her back that she stumbled. Either way, he considered it a minor victory. That was why the hairs on his arms stood on end after his skin made contact with hers. It wasn't because his body decided to take that particular moment to notice for the first time that she was a girl. It had nothing to do with the softness of her skin, or the way his arm bumped against the curve of her waist as they were jostled.

It wasn't like Freddie didn't _know _Sam was a girl. He just chose to ignore that fact. She wasn't the kind of girl who wore clothes to get a guy's attention, and she never tried to be all soft and sweet, so it was easy to put it out of his mind. Except when he had occasion to be close enough to touch her after the arm incident in the hall at school.

Maybe Sam was rubbing off on him or something. Because even though he was now painfully aware of her being female, he found himself fighting back even more than usual, though it wasn't really as serious as it could have been. Sam would throw something at him in the Shay living room, he would push her away when she sat down next to him. She would grab his wrist in preparation for flipping him over, he would latch one hand onto her waist to hold her off. It probably looked like some sort of weird dance.

-o-

And maybe they were locked in some sort of weird dance. And maybe they were more aware of it than they wanted to admit. And maybe Sam forcing the dance to a complete stop in a deserted courtyard at school would wind up as the mistake to end all mistakes, but at the time, she really didn't care. All she could see was Freddie right in front of her, Freddie who reminded her of sunshine, Freddie who was trying to make his voice even lower and more soothing, so she went for it.

And maybe Freddie should have seen it coming. Maybe the sudden scent of Sam's hair all around him, the pounding of blood in his ears, the press of her lips against his, maybe it was all something he could have been expecting. Maybe he had spent so long pretending not to notice certain things that when they were staring him, quite literally, in the face, he just didn't know what to do. And maybe that's why it took him so long to decide to kiss her back.

-o-

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I don't even want to think about how long it's been since I've finished writing anything. In my defense though, I have been super busy. This has been sitting on my computer with four of the five (I won't tell you which ones, but you can guess) completed for the last month, and I was trying so hard to finish this last night so it could go up before NaNoWriMo officially started, but it didn't happen. I will, however, in honor of NaNoWriMo, be writing something this month. I just have absolutely no idea what yet, except that I'll definitely be doing fanfiction this year. And yes, I am aware it is already the first. I'm also aware that this just kind of stops, but it was never really intended to be a story, just quick snippets in time, so I'm sorry if it leaves you unsatisfied.  
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**Also, for those of you who are interested, Portrait Magazine is running it's annual Top 30 Under 30 poll, and the finals are going on until November 23. You can go vote for the cast of iCarly if they're your favorites! Link's in my profile.  
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